Tuesday Morning Post: The long downtime of the soul edition
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Jun 8th 2010 at 7:00AM
Luckily, there's plenty of news to catch up on, including a good selection of official news on patch 3.3.5 and some of the new features of the Cataclysm expansion. Read on for all the latest, and keep coming back all day for the latest news, tips, and guides. Whether your server is down for the morning or down all day, we'll be here for you.
Hot News and Features
- While you're waiting for the servers to come back up, take a minute to make sure your computer and account are safe against the latest phishing and hacking attempts.
- Blizzard's started up an official contest to get your guild into the upcoming Cataclysm beta test.
- Blizzard's released an official preview of the new Twin Peaks battleground coming with Cataclysm. Beware, spoilers abound!
- Patch 3.3.5 will have a delayed regional release system, with US servers getting the patch first.
- In light of the news above, Ruby Sanctum's activation will be delayed until all servers have the patch.
- Patch 3.3.5 will include a removal of vote kick cool down for good little boys and girls who use their own kick and leave group buttons very sparingly.
- WoW.com has strategy guides for Icecrown Citadel and the Ruby Sanctum.
- With the Wrath expansion nearly done, we're taking a look back. This time, we have a postmortem of Naxxramas.
- Speaking of older dungeons, we actually rather miss Karazhan.
- Lichborne has advice for new level 80 tanks.
- Totem Talk has a guide to getting into PvP for the healing shaman and configuring Power Auras for the enhancement shaman.
- Shifting Perspectives isn't stopping at trolls, and discusses avoiding the failkin label.
- Encrypted Text discusses some changes to Vanish in the Cataclysm Alpha.
- Spiritual Guidance helps shadow priests take down the Lich King and helps healing priests set up their shadow priesting dual spec.
- The Light And How To Swing It continues to offer advice on gearing a new level 80 paladin tank.
- Scattered Shots offers advice for breaking into PvP.
- The Care and Feeding of Warriors discusses Ghostcrawler's musings on Vigilance.
- Arcane Brilliance looks at early level quest rewards for mages.
- WoW Rookie discusses using trinkets with Bloodlust and Heroism.
- Raid Rx helps you break out of healing paralysis.
- Gold Capped discusses your competition in the gold making arena.
- The OverAchiever helps you get the Utgarde achievements.
- Blood Sport deals with arena griefers.
- The Art of War(craft) helps you survive battleground PUGs.
- AddOn Spotlight covers the hot new HudMap.
- Check out the latest installment of Byron the Tauren Rogue.
- Drama Mamas discuss what to do when your GM is a big spineless jellyfish.
- Know Your Lore looks at the current politics of the Draenei.
Filed under: Realm Status, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Lechbrava Jun 8th 2010 7:11AM
Does anyone know exactly what they are doing to the servers?
Nis-Lennart Nissen Jun 8th 2010 7:20AM
Probably upgrading them from windows 95 to windows vista...
Fletcher Jun 8th 2010 7:36AM
But, but ... that would make them work *worse*!
CaryEverett Jun 8th 2010 8:26AM
What you talk'n 'bout Flecher?
Windows 95... *shudders* I mean... I guess it was at least better than 3.x
Fletcher Jun 8th 2010 8:30AM
But *Vista*? The wailing and gnashing of teeth that one caused was audible all the way over here on my iMac. I hear Windows 7 doesn't suck as hard, though.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/30/
Roy Jun 8th 2010 8:44AM
Yes, I know vaguely what they are doing. I can't point to specifics, because I am not from Blizzard.
Basically they are performing hardware upgrades to all the servers in order to handle the Cataclysm expansion. My guess is that they have new servers to swap in for the old ones. They will need to do extensive testing when replacing a server, including full regression testing.
Hoggersbud Jun 8th 2010 12:00PM
Well, I sure hope somebody knows!
But I doubt they'll be telling *us* anything.
Centar Jun 8th 2010 12:59PM
If Roy is correct you can expect to log on and see that your realm will be more stable. Unless they got there servers on sale at Dollar General
Kurtis Jun 8th 2010 7:26AM
You missed the word "dark".
RiverDragon Jun 8th 2010 10:43AM
I am really loving the Douglas Adams references...
Ikarus Jun 8th 2010 2:59PM
If you're referring to "The dark night of the soul", that's actually from St. John of the Cross I believe (16th century)
MrBojangals Jun 8th 2010 7:28AM
Loving all the D.N.A refrences
MusedMoose Jun 8th 2010 7:42AM
Today, my motherboard arrives for my new computer, which will be over four times faster, have eight times the ram, and have four times the video memory of my current one. All I have to do is put it together.
I'm okay with the downtime. *grin*
iammurlocftw Jun 8th 2010 2:06PM
MEGA grats dude! how much will you save by building it youself over buying a prebuilt?
MusedMoose Jun 8th 2010 7:06PM
Thanks! And I'm honestly not sure about the money - a friend of mine is an uber-guru when it comes to computers, so he sent me a wish list from newegg.com with what I should buy. This is the second computer I've built from parts, it's a great experience. Not counting software (Win7 and other things), the whole thing is costing me about the same as the last PC I built... over six years ago. *grin*
CaryEverett Jun 8th 2010 7:55AM
I'm still curious about the whole change to the vote kick thing in the next patch.
I probably abandon about 1 in 10 groups. Mostly it's groups where people insist on pulling because they don't think I'm going fast enough. I pull instances fast. I get through places like UK in 10-12 minutes. You aren't helping by making the run go faster by running ahead and pulling a group 2 seconds before me, and making it a chaotic nightmare to get all the mobs back together in one spot. You are in fact slowing the run down, because with controlled pulls, I can get them into a neat little group for you to AOE down much faster, and while you are busy pulling, you are also busy not DPSing which means things die slower.
Okay? Hugs and kisses
Jonisjalopy Jun 8th 2010 8:36AM
My special ladyfriend is pretty excited about the 24 hour downtime :D
Lord Deathknight Jun 8th 2010 8:57AM
The infomation about upgrading from windows 95 to Vista is incorrect it's Windows ME
Tyler Jun 8th 2010 9:04AM
*Sigh* There is nothing like sitting around until 2:00pm waiting for my realm to come online. Yes the only cure for this is to post on forums about World of Warcraft just sinking it in deeper the thoughts of not being able to play WoW yet...
Ronin Jun 8th 2010 11:20AM
2 PM? You do know that for most of the realms, the servers arent' coming up at 2 PM (11 AM Pacific)? That they're not coming up until after MIDNIGHT?
Just wondering if you hadn't read that, or if you're actually complaining about waiting a few hours when most NA realms won't see playtime at all today ;)